Project Report ON "Rocker Bogie Car": Name of Students Enrollment No
Project Report ON "Rocker Bogie Car": Name of Students Enrollment No
Project Report ON "Rocker Bogie Car": Name of Students Enrollment No
ON
“ROCKER BOGIE CAR”
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the following Students of Third Year Diploma Programme in
Mechanical Engineering from Government Polytechnic Mumbai have successfully
completed the project work titled “ROCKER BOGIE CAR” during the academic
year 2019-20 under the guidance of Prof.N.N.ANSARI.
UNDERTAKING
We declare that the work presented in this project “ROCKER BOGIE CAR”,
submitted to the Mechanical Engineering Department, Government Polytechnic
Mumbai to fulfill the requirements for the award of Diploma in Mechanical
Engineering, is my original work. I have not plagiarized or submitted the same work
for the award of any other degree or examination. In case this undertaking found
incorrect, I accept that my Diploma may be unconditionally withdrawn or may be
punishable as per the norms of Institute.
PLACE :-
DATE:-
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
PREFACE
Also it can be used in military and various applications where terrain and
were human can’t go.
ABSTRACT
The Project work “Rocker Bogie Car” deals with the important aspect of improving
the rover from its previous designs. The bogie car has to operate on rough and harsh
environments for which it was designed but several factors restrict its operational
capabilities, so the focus of our research is to overcome restrictions or to decrease it
to within an acceptable range for its smooth performance. Our research on the
restrictions of the car conducted by our team focused mainly on the drive system and
its drive modules which were not efficient, the linkage, the overturning or tilt range of
the car and the battery inefficiency from the other restrictions and problems that were
obtained from the literature review and research so, we conducted research on how to
improve that. The car has been completely made from PVC to increase its capability
to withstand shocks, vibrations and mechanical failures caused by the harsh
environment where it is operated on. Using CAD software the design of the car has
been fine tuned and by experimenting with prototypes and models of the car in the
experimental setup of the live test, improvements. The result of the project was the
implementation of independent directional control utilizing minimum drive modules
which increases the efficiency of the battery and increases the operating time of the
car, near zero tilt of the main body of the car by self-balancing of the body
counterweight method which decreases the tilt or overturning percentage of the car
and its stability and finally by direct linkage of the various links comprising the rover
which increases the loading capacity. Thus the various improvements ensure
structural, tilt stability, mechanical integrity and overall weight reduction and
mechanical feasibility.
INDEX
LIST OF FIGURES
1 ROCKER BOGIE 13
2 SOJORNER ROVER 14
3 SPIRIT ROVER 16
4 ACTUAL ASSEMBLY 23
5 CIRCUIT DIAGRAM 28
6 ARDINO UNO 30
7 ARDINO UNOO CIRCUIT 31
DIAGRAM
8 BLUETTOTH MODULE 32
9 MOTOR DRIVER 33
10 JUMPER WIRE 34
11 MOTOR 34
12 BATTERY 35
13 WHEEL 35
14 NUT AND BOLT 36
15 PIPE CLAMP 36
16 PVC PIPE 37
17 SUPPORTING FRAME 47
18 FINAL ASSEMBLY 48
19 LEG 49
20 ASSEMBLY OF FRONT LEG 50
21 ACUTAL CIRCUIT 52
LIST OF TABLES
CHAPTER -1
INTRODUCTION
Over the past decade, the rocker-bogie car has become a proven mobility application
known for its superior vehicle stability and obstacle-climbing capability. Following
several technology and research rover implementations, the system was successfully
known as Mar’s Pathfinder Sojourner rover.
Exploration Rover (MER) Project was first proposed, the use of a rocker-bogie car
was the obvious choice due to its extensive heritage. The challenge posed by MER
was to design a lightweight rocker-bogie car that would permit the mobility to stow
within the limited space available and deploy into a configuration that the rover could
then safely use to egress from the lander and explore the Martian surface.
When building a robot you'd like it to be as simple possible. In most cases
you'd never need a suspension system, but there were several instances when a
Suspension system cannot be avoided. The term “bogie” refers to the links that have
a drive wheel at each end. Bogies were commonly used as load wheels in the tracks
of army tanks as idlers distributing the load over the terrain. Bogies were also quite
commonly used on the trailers of semi-trailer trucks. Both applications now prefer
trailing arm suspensions. The rocker-bogie design has no
Springs or stub axles for each wheel, allowing the rover to climb over obstacles, such
as rocks, that are up to twice the wheel's diameter in size while keeping all six wheels
on the ground. As with any suspension system, the tilt stability is limited by the
height of the centre of gravity.
OBJECTIVES
CHAPTER – 2
LITERATURE SURVEY
HISTORY :-
The rocker-bogie system is the suspension arrangement developed in 1988 for use
in NASA's Mars rover Sojourner and which has since become NASA’s favored
design for rovers. It has been used in the 2003 Mars Exploration Rover mission
robots Spirit and Opportunity on the 2012 Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission's
rover Curiosity, and is slated for use in the Mars 2020 rover
SOJOURNER(ROVER) :-
Sojourner is the Mars Pathfinder robotic Mars rover that landed on July 4, 1997 in
the Ares Vallis region, and explored Mars for around three months. It has front and
rear cameras and hardware to conduct several scientific experiments. Designed for a
mission lasting 7 sols, with possible extension to 30 sols, it was in fact active for
83 sols (85 earth days). The base station had its last communication session with
Earth at 3:23 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time on September 27, 1997. The rover needed
the base station to communicate with Earth, despite still functioning at the time
communications ended.
It has solar panels and a non-rechargeable battery, which allowed limited nocturnal
operations. Once the batteries were depleted, it could only operate during the
day. The batteries are lithium-thionyl chloride (LiSOCl2) and could provide 150 watt-
hours. The batteries also allowed the health of the rover to be checked while enclosed
in the cruise stage while en route to Mars.
0.22 square meters of solar cells could produce a maximum of about 15 watts on
Mars, depending on conditions. The cells were GaAs/Ge (Gallium
Arsenide/Germanium)and capable of about 18 percent efficiency. They could survive
down to about −140° Celsius (−220 °F).
The name of the rover was selected in an essay contest won by Valerie Ambroise, a
12-year-old from U.S. state of Connecticut. It is named for abolitionist and women's
rights activist Sojourner Truth. The second-place prize went to Deepti Rohatgi, 18,
of Rockville, who proposed Marie Curie, a Nobel Prize-winning Polish chemist.
Third place went to Adam Sheedy, 16, of Round Rock, TX, who chose Judith Resnik
a United States' astronaut and shuttle crew-member.
SPIRIT(ROVER):
Spirit, also known as MER-A (Mars Exploration Rover – A) or MER-2, is a robotic
rover on Mars, active from 2004 to 2010.] It was one of two rovers of NASA's Mar
Exploration Rover Mission. It landed successfully within the impact
crater Gusev on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4, 2004, three weeks before
its twin, Opportunity (MER-B), which landed on the other side of the planet. Its name
was chosen through a NASA-sponsored student essay competition.
Spirit (and its twin, Opportunity) are six-wheeled, solar-powered robots standing 1.5
meters (4.9 ft) high, 2.3 meters (7.5 ft) wide and 1.6 meters (5.2 ft) long and weighing
180 kilograms (400 lb). Six wheels on a rocker-bogie system enable mobility over
rough terrain. Each wheel has its own motor. The vehicle is steered at front and rear
and is designed to operate safely at tilts of up to 30 degrees. Maximum speed is 5
centimeters per second (2.0 in/s); 0.18 kilometers per hour (0.11 mph), although
average speed is about 1 centimeter per second (0.39 in/s).
Both Spirit and Opportunity have pieces of the fallen World Trade Center's metal on
them that were "turned into shields to protect cables on the drilling mechanisms"
LITERATURE SURVEY
NASA developed the rocker-bogie suspension system for their rovers and was
implemented in the Mars Pathfinder's and Sojourner rover. The rocker-bogie car
system passively keeps all six wheels on the robot in contact with the ground even on
uneven surfaces. This creates for great traction and maneuverability (Harrington &
Voorhees). The rocker-bogie car mechanism which was currently NASA’s
approved design for wheeled mobile robots, mainly because it had study or
resilient capabilities to deal with obstacles and because it uniformly distributes the
payload over its 6 wheels at all times. It also can be used for other purposes to
operate in rough roads and to climb the steps. It was having lots of advantages but
one of the major disadvantages is the rotation of the mechanism when and where
is required. The rotation can be possible by providing individual motors to
individual wheels which causes arise in cost and complicacy in design. Here an
attempt was made to modify the existing design by incorporating a gear type
steering mechanism which will be operated by a single motor which simplifies the
design as well as the total cost and operating cost of the mechanism.
The system of rovers still crucial to enabled to reach objective paths, conduct
research, and collect the data and to position it, it depends according to the demand.
There are three important types of rover locomotion developed very far i.e., wheeled,
legged and caterpillar locomotion. The difference between the miscellaneous models
of planetary robots lies on the type of the system. Also after developing many legged
and hybrid robots, most researchers are still focus on the wheeled locomotion for
rovers, why because of its locomotive ease and advantages and among all wheeled
locomotion design, the rocker bogie suspension system based on the design remain
most favored. The ancient FIDO rover and the Sojourner contain six independently
steered and driven wheels suspended from the rocker-bogie mechanism to get
maximum suspension and ground clearance. Rocky Seven Rover has a similar
suspension system just different from the front wheels. The Nanorover & Nomad
Rovers have 4 steered wheels suspended from the 2 bogies & CRAB Rover utilizes 2
parallel bogie mechanisms on every side to overcome obstacles and big holes. As far
as the initial research it is concerned, the software optimization seeks for an optimum
in that constrained solution space given an initial answer and Dr. Li et al. derive a
mathematical expression to generalize rover suspension parameters which define the
geometry of the rocker-bogie system. The objective behind evolution of rocker bogie
suspension system is to develop a system which is minimizes the energy
consumption, the vertical displacement of the rover’s centre of mass and its pitch
angle. In the research, our Endeavour is to be distribute these major advantages
embedded with the rocker bogie conventional suspension system in general and
suspension system of heavy vehicles in particular.
CHAPTER – 3
THEORY
Our main goal is to design, develop, and test a rover to serve as a mobility platform,
suitable for testing planetary surface exploration technologies in harsh earth
environments. The design will focus on incorporating features that are believed to be
essential for most planetary exploration missions based on research of past and
current rovers. Given what we have learned about existing rovers and the types of
missions they aim to accomplish, our design goals for our rover have been made into
these categories:
1. Mobility and navigation
2. Size and weight restrictions
While our rover will not be travelling to space, it is our goal to make a robust and
ruggedized platform that will be suitable for testing in harsh earth environments, on
terrain similar to that of our moon and Mars. Given sufficient mobility in planetary
environments, the rover must also be able to accommodate payloads,if possible.
Transporting sensitive scientific instruments across rough terrain is the main goal for
nearly all exploration rovers, and thus one of our central requirements. Additionally,
to be useful for other users both in academia or industry, the rover needs to easily
integrate new hardware and software as part of its payloads. By providing a robust
mobility platform that can accommodate a wide range of payloads, the rover should
prove useful to anyone interested in testing rover related technologies or conducting
research in the field of space exploration. Lastly, the rover will aim to recognize the
size and weight constraints that all space bound vehicles face. While there are many
resource constraints that prohibit us from designing a space-ready rover, the design
will attempt to accommodate space considerations when possible. In formulating the
design specifications relating to mobility we wanted to ensure that the rover could
traverse a wide variety of harsh Earth environments. Such terrain includes deserts,
rock fields, gravel pits, sand dunes, and mountainous areas in many different
climates. In examining these terrains we will make design criterias relating to the size
of obstacles, inclines, and speeds that the rover must achieve, in order to ensure that it
could maneuver in many different environments. in most scenarios the ability to go
over larger obstacles always increases mobility potential. For our rover we set the
goal of being able to traverse obstacles, both positive and negative to the ground
plane.
The rover must maintain good wheel traction in challenging rough terrains. If traction
is too high, the vehicle consumes a lot of power in order to overcome the force and
move. If traction is too low, the rover is not able to climb over obstacles or inclined
surfaces. Slip occurs when the traction force at a wheel-terrain contact point is larger
than the product of the normal force at the same wheel and the friction coefficient.
The rover is said to be stable when it is in a quasi-static state in which it does not tilt
over. The simplest approach to find the static stability is using the geometric model,
which is commonly referred to as stability margin. As the asymmetric suspension
system of the passively articulated rover has a great influence on the vehicle’s
effective stability, a more advanced approach is using a static model. The lateral
stability of the rover ensures that the rover does not tip sideways. As the rover has
two symmetric sides, the geometric model is used to find the lateral stability of the
vehicle. Lateral stability is computed by finding the minimum allowed angle on the
slope before the rover tips over. Lateral stability is ensured if this angle is smaller
than the maximum angle of incline α on the slope at the wheel-terrain contact points.
CHAPTER – 4
DESIGN PROCEDURE
DESIGN OF CAR
THE DESIGN DISCUSSION OF ROCKER BOGIE CAR
Mobility relates to the rover’s capacity to traverse varying terrains, slopes, and
obstacles. In beginning the process of formulating the drive architecture we reviewed
current and past rovers in consideration of chassis design, suspension methods, wheel
design, and power requirements. Since nearly all rover hardware is related to
mobility, this section will review most of the mechanical design including the chassis,
suspension, and wheel components. These rovers move slowly and climb over the
obstacles by having wheels lift each piece of the suspension over the obstacle one
portion at a time. NASA’s currently favored design, the rocker-bogie, uses a two
wheeled rocker arm on a passive pivot attached to a main bogie that is connected
differentially to the main bogie on the other side. The ride is further smoothed by the
rocker which only passes on a portion of a wheel’s displacement to the main bogie.
Each wheel is independently driven. The maximum speed of the robots operated in
this way is limited to eliminate as many dynamic effects as possible, and so that the
motors can be geared down so that the wheels can individually lift a large portion of
the entire vehicle’s mass.
In order to go over an obstacle, the front wheels are forced against the obstacle by the
rear wheels. The rotation of the front wheel then lifts the front of the vehicle up and
over the obstacle. The middle wheel is the pressed against the obstacle by the rear
wheel and pulled against the obstacle by the front, until it is lifted up and over.
Finally, the rear wheel is pulled over the obstacle by the front two wheels. During
each wheel’s traversal of the obstacle, forward progress of the vehicle is slowed or
completely halted. We will be using the same mechanism the six wheel independent
drive to cross the obstacles but without any differential. To further simplify the design
we choose to use one motor to directly drive each wheel. Since it is a skid steering
rover an alternative solution could be to have one motor drive two wheels on either
side, resulting in fewer motors and less mass. However, having one motor for each
wheel reduces the need for a complex power transfer system, which is often done
with belts, gears, or drive shafts. The material used for the links should be cheap as
well as light in weight thats why we will use the Acrylic material which has the
required properties of light weight and rigidity.
ACTUAL ASSEMBLY
WHEEL DESIGN
The wheels are needed to be wider for increasing the traction to traverse upon the
obstacles. And their diameter depend upon the availability and amount of speed
required. The actual rover uses billet wheels, and machine the wheel and tread from
one piece of round aluminum stock.The main problem during the selection of the
wheels is light weight consideration and the distribution of load on the wheels.
CM CM CM
POWER SUPPLY :
Power Supply the MER has to travel the surface of mars where there is no
availability of power source thus it used solar cell to charge the battery and derive the
power from the battery for the motors and other equipment. But since we are using
the rover on the earth surface and our main focus is the development of mechanism
rather than the power source. We used cheapest possible alternative that is the 12V
1.2amp rechargeable battery.
WHEEL DIAMETER
v= π x D x n /60
50 = 3.14 x D x 100/60
D= 50 x 60 /3.14 x 100
D = 95.6MM
D = 100MM
ARDINO PROGRAMMING
int val;
int nb;
void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
pinMode(9,OUTPUT);
pinMode(8,OUTPUT);
pinMode(7,OUTPUT);
pinMode(6,INPUT);
void loop()
if(Serial.available()>0)
Stop();
if(data=='R')
digitalWrite(9,HIGH);
digitalWrite(8,LOW);
digitalWrite(6,HIGH);
digitalWrite(7,LOW);
else if(data=='L')
digitalWrite(9,LOW);
digitalWrite(8,HIGH);
digitalWrite(6,LOW);
digitalWrite(7,HIGH);
}else if(data=='F'){
digitalWrite(9,LOW);
digitalWrite(8,HIGH);
digitalWrite(6,HIGH);
digitalWrite(7,LOW);
}else if(data=='B'){
digitalWrite(9,HIGH);
digitalWrite(8,LOW);
digitalWrite(6,LOW);
digitalWrite(7,HIGH);
void Stop()
digitalWrite(9,LOW);
digitalWrite(8,LOW);
digitalWrite(6,LOW);
digitalWrite(7,LOW);
CIRCUIT DIAGRAM
COMPONENTS SPECIFICATION
1] ARDINO UNO :
Arduino Uno is a microcontroller board based on 8-bit ATmega328P
microcontroller. Along with ATmega328P, it consists other components such as
crystal oscillator, serial communication, voltage regulator, etc. to support the
microcontroller. Arduino Uno has 14 digital input/output pins (out of which 6 can be
used as PWM outputs), 6 analog input pins, a USB connection, A Power barrel jack,
an ICSP header and a reset button.
Microcontroller: ATmega328P
Operating Voltage: 5V
Flash Memory: 32 KB
(ATmega328P) of which 0.5 KB
used by bootloader
SRAM: 2 KB (ATmega328P)
EEPROM: 1 KB (ATmega328P)
LED_BUILTIN: 13
HC-05 is a very cool module which can add two-way (full-duplex) wireless
functionality to our projects.This module communicate between two
microcontrollers like Arduino or communicate with any device with Bluetooth
functionality like a Phone or Laptop. There are many android applications that are
already available which makes this process a lot easier.
L298N is an integrated circuit multi watt 15 package and capable of giving high
voltage. It is a high current dual full bridge driver which is designed as to accept
standard TTL logic levels. It can drive inductive loads e.g solenoids, motors (DC and
stepping motor) and relays.
4] JUMPER WIRE :
Jumper wires are used for making connections between items on
breadboard and Arduino’s header pins. They can be used for all circuits wiring.
6] BATTERY :
It is a 12V 1.2amp seal lead acid battery , it can be recharged . It has a
characteristic of high discharge rate, wide operating temperature, long service life and
deep discharge recover.
FIG. BATTERY
7] WHEELS :
DIMENSIONS – 10 * 6CM
CHAPTER – 05
WORKING
The rocker bogie car reduces the motion by compared to the other
suspension car because each of the bogies have 6 wheels has an
independent mechanism for motion and in which the 2 front and 2 rear or
back wheels have individual steering systems that allows the vehicle to
turn in place as zero degree turning ratio. Each wheel also has thick cleats
which allow the grip for climbing in smooth sand and scrambling over
the rocks with ease. In that way it overcomes the vertical obstacle faces,
and the front wheels are forced against to the obstacle by the middle and
back wheels which generate maximum required torque. The rotation of
the front wheel lifts the front of the vehicle up and over the obstacle and
obstacle overtaken. Those wheels which remain in the middle, is then
pressed against the obstacle by the rear wheels and pulled against the
obstacle by the front till the time it is lifted up and over.
CHAPTER – 06
COSTING & ESTIMATING
7 0.5INCH 45 ELBOW 4 20 80
8 STOPPER 2 25 50
14 CONNECTING WIRES 3M 30 90
16 CLIPS 6 20 120
TOTAL 3210
8 STOPPER 45 50
6274 3210
CHAPTER – 07
RESULTING AND DISCUSSION
CHAPTER – 08
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
ADVANTAGES :-
1 This mechanism allows climbing obstacles twice the size of wheel diameter.
2Does not employ springs and stub axles.
3 Equal distribution of load on all wheels.
4 Independent movement of rocker on either sides of the bogie.
5 The front and back wheels have individual drives for climbing, enabling the rover
to traverse obstacle without slip.
6 The design is simple and reliable This mechanism allows climbing obstacles
twice the size of wheel diameter.
DISADVANTAGES :
2-The impulsive collisions also decrease the climbing capability of the system. They
decrease the grip of wheels on ground hence the tractive force of ground reduces. We
tested our rocker bogie suspension at two different speeds,
a) when we used 100 rpm motors, it was able to climb obstacles which were of about
twice the size of wheel diameter.
b) When we used 150 rpm motors the system could hardly climb obstacles higher
than the size of wheel diameter.
CHAPTER – 09
FUTURE SCOPE
IN MILITARY -
With the development in technology of the Bogie can be used for
IN TRANSPORT -
By the development of a bigger model it can be used for transporting
man and material through a rough terrain or obstacle containing regions
like stairs. We could develop it into a wheel chair too. It can be send in
valleys, jungles or such places where humans may face some danger. It
can also be developed into low cost exploration rover that could be send
for collecting information about the environment of some celestial
bodies.
CHAPTER - 10
PHOTO GALLERY
SUPPORTING FRAME
MOTOR DRIVER
FINAL ASSEMBLY
LEG
BATTERY
WHEEL
ARDINO UNO
MOTOR
CIRCUIT